A/N: Updating with some stuff I hadn't bothered to put online. This replaces Return to Innocence and contains many similarities. I promise that I haven't abandoned This Used to be My Playground, I've simply had other ambitions as of late.
I wonder if Mr. Perino and Emma ever did it.
I mean, Emma went through her little slutty rebellion right around the time he was bugging her about her marks, so maybe she traded favours for grades? Then again, he's a teacher, and maybe that would have crossed her shaky moral line, even if going down on Jay didn't seem to bother her.
It's things like these that take my mind off what he's doing. It's things like these that I think about when he's inside of me, doing his thing. I pretend I like it, let out the occasional gasp of surprise, but the only time I can even remotely enjoy it is when I imagine that it's Sean.
I've pretended to be okay since he left. It's been a year--a year!--and I've had a pretend crush on Craig and a pretend friendship with Jimmy and a pretend happiness the rest of the time with the rest of the world. But here I am, sleeping with my teacher, and hoping and praying that Sean will waltz in and save me.
He's done and dressed before I can even find my bra. He grunts his appreciation and leaves me all alone in the dusty apartment that stinks perpetually with the sour stench of sex.
I moved back out the first time Mom picked up a bottle of vodka. I found it in the kitchen. She hadn't even taken a sip, but I knew she would and I didn't wait around to scan the classifieds. I spent some of my time at home, still, and no one even knew I wasn't living there full-time. As far as my so-called friends were concerned, life was great--my mom was sober, I was living at home, and I never ever thought about Sean.
Ha.
She was the biggest mistake who ever touched me.
I fuck my students. I'll admit it, okay? I'm a class-A pig. I take advantage of them, but damnit, they enjoy it. I'm not the only one benefiting.
I go for the ones with secrets. I never sleep with a student without a deep, dark corner of their life that I can hold over their head. I make absolutely sure that they won't betray me--that no one will find out. And no one ever does.
Ellie Nash--I should have resisted. I never should have even met her eyes. I never should have contemplated what it would be like to feel her skin caressing mine. But I did.
She had her own set of secrets. She was broken and she was easy to take advantage of. She didn't want anyone else to know that she wasn't okay and I was happy enough to participate in her self-destruction. She never even considered talking about it, but had she, I could have threatened a million different things. I could have ruined her reputation in an instant.
We all laughed at her around the teacher's lounge--well, all of us except Kwan. Even Archie joined in--of course, his daughter was still madly in love with Ellie's ex. I mean, she was such an easy target. Everyone knew she was a cutter. Everyone knew she was fucked in the head. You can't survive a teaching career without poking a little fun at your students.
I guess she heard about my reputation somehow. She seduced me--let that be known. She was the one who stopped by after class, who asked for extra-credit in that silky-smooth voice, who left her book behind on purpose and answered the door in a barely-there set of clothing. She was the one who took my arm and guided me inside and offered me something to drink. She was the one who spread her legs with a glass of vodka still pressed to her lips.
All I did was give in.
He made it easy for me. He made it easy to just numb my brain and pretend that I didn't exist. He made it easy to ache for Sean and imagine him there in the room with me.
He made it easy to give up my virginity.
I had so much to drink that night that I can barely remember what happened, but I know that what happened was exactly what I wanted. I don't think I ever let him bang me when I was sober. I know, I know, I'm following in Mom's hypocritical footsteps, but you know what? I don't care. I don't care anymore. Not about that, not about anything. I don't know if I even miss Sean anymore or if I miss my dad or if I just exist and existing itself hurts. I don't know.
It was painful--it's always painful. Physically, I mean. It wasn't that he was inherently bad, I just didn't care and not caring meant, well, it was a little... rough. I think he wanted me to like it. It wasn't his fault that I didn't.
My life soon grew to revolve around him. I never made plans before finding out if he was coming over. I stopped doing my homework, barely scraping by in all classes but his--where, of course, I received straight A's. I wouldn't have stopped sleeping with him even if he'd failed me, mind you, but he didn't need to know that. Besides, I think it helped assuage his guilt.
She was waiting for me as usual that night. She greeted me at the door after a quick peek to check if the neighbours were all asleep. She didn't really care if people knew, but I did, and she wasn't particularly eager to lose me to the police, anyway.
I think she hated thongs (she was more a boy-shorts type of underwear girl, and how I know this, I have no idea) but she'd bought a new one hoping I would like it--I did.
She had a tiny tattoo on her hip. She'd had it ever since I'd known her, and she said I was the only one besides the artist who even knew it existed. It wasn't traditional goth art--it was a butterfly with rainbow wings. She rambled on with a certain sentimentality--apparently it had something to do with her father--but I didn't really pay attention. I tried to--I figured I owed her that much--but she was really boring to listen to sometimes. Like, REALLY boring. Thankfully, she didn't talk all that much.
The phone rang and I listened carefully and then I excused myself to "get a drink of water." I checked my email and then I returned to the room where he was waiting, naked.
That night, she gave me the best oral sex I'd ever received.
She was enthusiastic and teasing and she used everything she'd ever learned to torture me, taking me to the edge of pleasure and back again and rubbing herself against me as I shivered in pleasure. I don't know how Sean ever gave her up--well, okay, I do. He'd never slept with her.
I was her first and I loved teaching her what it was like. I'd never been someone's first before. No one else has ever been interested in me as anything except an easy A, or an outlet while they're in between relationships. But Ellie--Ellie was different. Ellie wanted ME.
I suppose I should have been suspicious when she left the room "for another drink of water." Frankly, I was still basking in ecstasy. I wondered why I hadn't found this girl years before; I wondered how I could keep her for the rest of my living days.
I didn't care about who she was or what she wanted in life or how she felt about, well, anything. I wish now that I could say I did, but I didn't and I still wouldn't if I did it over again.
I'm no saint, but I'm no worse than anyone else. I just admit to it, that's all.
It took him a minute to figure out what was going on when he heard a loud bang from the next room. He struggled to his feet and trudged toward the living room (if you could call it that) without even pulling on his pants.
There was blood splattered on the wall, and when he looked at her computer, he saw a video on repeat play--Colonel Nash, beheaded before he even had a chance to scream.
But the worst thing was, Mr. Perino could only think in puns--Mr. Nash had lost his head, and Ellie Nash had lost her mind. No wonder she'd been so good in bed that night.